The United States will seek to relaunch interrupted migration agreements with Cuba, US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Wednesday (April 20th) on the eve of a high-level meeting between Washington and Havana.
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“I’m not going to anticipate the dialogue, but we have had migration agreements with Cuba for many years. They are suspended and we will explore the possibility of reactivating them“, declared Alejandro Mayorkas who participates in Panama, with the Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a regional meeting on the migration issue.
Preventing migrants from “going to sea”
Without specifying which agreements he was referring to, Alejandro Mayorkas said Thursday’s meeting in Washington, the first meeting at the highest level between the two countries since President Joe Biden took office, is part of the commitment of the United States to allow “safe, humanitarian and orderly migration“. The aim is to prevent migrants from “take to the sea, because these are totally perilous journeysadded Alejandro Mayorkas.
The Washington meeting comes at a time when Cuba, hit by its worst economic crisis in 30 years, is experiencing a major migration exodus. According to US authorities, between October 2021 and March 2022, more than 78,000 Cubans entered the United States illegally through the Mexican border, double the number of inhabitants who left the island in 1994, the previous wave of mass emigration. . Since Nicaragua, an ally of Havana, announced at the end of November the abolition of visas for Cubans, thousands of them have left there in the hope of then joining the United States.
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Havana accuses Washington of putting pressure on Latin American governments to demand transit visas from Cubans stopping over at their airports, and of not respecting a migration agreement providing for the granting of 20,000 visas a year to Cubans. Cubans. In March the United States Embassy in Havana announced the reopening of its consulate, closed since 2017 due to alleged health incidents affecting diplomats, and the resumptionprogressive” and “limited» the issuance of visas. Since coming to power in 2021, Joe Biden, despite his campaign promises, has kept the 243 sanctions imposed by Donald Trump in place. These have reinforced the embargo in force since 1962, contrary to Barack Obama’s policy of relaxation.